Hello and welcome to another History Fireside Chats special. In today’s special we are building on from the last chat about the Culture Industry by exploring American Christmas films during the Cold War and what they tell us about postwar American society. I’m joined in this special today by the brilliant Vaughn Joy, PhD Researcher in Christmas Film History at UCL (find out more about Vaughn’s fascinating research and PhD here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/history/people/phd-community/g-vaughn-joy). We hope you will join us around the virtual fireplace as we talk It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, Rambo and whether it is safe to let your family watch Christmas films this season.
I hope you all enjoy! Merry Christmas, happy holidays and thanks for listening.
In today’s Fireside Chat, we explore the extent to which seemingly innocuous films and TV shows are actually trying to make us docile and passive workers, unable to rebel against capitalism.
The culture industry is a rich and fascinating theory – this short chat is only intended to be a very brief overview of the idea and is not intended to be a complete summary. If you are interested in delving more into this rich topic, I would strongly recommend looking at these sources:
Welcome to History Fireside Chats Halloween Special. I am joined today by three victims (sorry, colleagues) who kindly agreed to talk to me about what Halloween means to them and what role it plays in society.
In today’s Fireside Chat we explore the ideas of Marshall McLuhan and the notion that the medium is the message – an idea that remains as thought-provoking today as it did in the 1960s.
If you are interested in reading more about McLuhan I would strongly recommend:
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (2001)
Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (1967)
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (1983)
Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, (1979)
History Fireside Chats are produced, recorded and researched by Dr Kristopher Lovell. The audio was recorded using the CAD M179
In today’s chat we discuss the media’s role in reporting the Bosnian War and we discuss debates surrounding the importance of objectivity in war reporting – specifically the controversial notion of journalism of attachment.
If you are interested in reading more about media coverage of the Bosnian War I would strongly recommend:
Martin Bell, In Harm’s Way, (https://amzn.to/3j0vS4x) This is a very good, albeit occasionally problematic, account of Bell’s time in Bosnia. Later editions contain some self-reflection and explanations about journalism of attachment.
Gregory Kent, Framing War and Genocide: British Policy and News Media Reaction to the War in Bosnia, NJ, 2006 (https://amzn.to/2Ed3MnJ) A more specialist text but very comprehensive.
Vulliamy, E. (1999) ‘”Neutrality” and the Absence of Reckoning: A Journalist’s Account’, Journal of International Affairs Spring, 52(2): 603-20
Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 1997 (https://amzn.to/2YmRLmF) A very impressive body of work that goes into detail about the use of stereotypes and tropes used in the war reportage and how that affected people’s perceptions.
History Fireside Chats are produced, recorded and researched by Dr Kristopher Lovell. The audio was recorded using the Samson G-Track Pro: https://amzn.to/2YU2cit
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Bernard Spilsbury, 1925. Official Home Office Photograph
In this chat we discuss the media coverage of the Brighton Trunk Murders in 1934 and what the coverage tells us about celebrity culture, British society and its relationship with the press.
As always, this is only a broad overview, but if you are interested in finding out more about the period and some of the issues that we discuss, I would strongly recommned the following:
Bingham, Adrian., Gender, Modernity, and the Popular Press in Inter-war Britain
Beers, Laura., ‘A Model MP? Ellen Wilkinson, Gender, Politics and Celebrity Culture in Interwar Britain,’ Cultural and Social History, Vol. 10, No. 2 (2013), pp. 231-250 https://doi.org/10.2752/147800413X13591373275321Burney, I., & Pemberton, N. (2011). Bruised witness: Bernard Spilsbury and the performance of early twentieth-century English forensic pathology. Medical history, 55(1), 41–60. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0025727300006049
Mass Observation, The Press and It’s Readers
Val McDermid, Forensics: The Anatomy of Crime
History Fireside Chats are produced, recorded and researched by Dr Kristopher Lovell. The audio was recorded using the Samson SAC02: https://amzn.to/3211eTx
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Music Used (Public Domain)
Bach, Cello Suite no. 1 in G major, BWV 1007, I. Prélude/ Public Domain
London Philharmonic Orchestra – Symphony No. 104 in D major ‘London’ (Haydn) – 4th Movement – Allegro spiritoso/ Public Domain
New York Symphony Orchestra – Willem Mengelberg – Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21 – 1st Movement – Adagio molto – Allegro con brio/ Public Domain
Gus Arnheim & His Orchestra with Harry Barris, It’s the Darndest Thing, 1 January 1932/ Public Domain
Communist firing squad aiming at the colossal Monument of the Sacred Heart near Madrid, 31 August 1936
In this chat we discuss journalism and the Spanish Civil War, exploring the role of correspondents is writing the ‘first draft of history’ and some of the debate surrounding their wartime roles. We also discuss how these debates can affect our memory of war and conflict.
If you are interested in learning more about the Spanish Civil War I’d strongly recommend reading:
Stanley Payne, The Spanish Civil War. An interesting overview of the conflict. Payne has also written on some more specific and focused aspects of the Spanish Civil War.
Anthony Beevor, The Battle for Spain. If you just want to look at one book that covers a lot, then Beevor’s rather massive book (at over 600 pages) is worth reading. It is a very comprehensive and engaging account.
Hannah Graham, The Spanish Civil War: An introduction. A much shorter and quicker, but no less scholarly, overview of the war compared to Beevor.
Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty. An excellent discussion of the role of war reporters more broadly, but his chapter on the Spanish Civil War is full of rich examples of reporters as propagandists, myth makers, and truth-seekers.
David Deacon, ‘”Going to Spain with the Boys”: Women Correspondents and the Spanish Civil War’, in Michael Bailey (ed) Narrating Media History. A more focused, but very interesting discussion into the role of female war reporters and the challenges they faced.
Martha Gellhorn, The Face of War. An excellent collection of some of Gellhorn’s brilliant articles.
Special thanks to Ali, Robert and Rob for their help clarifying the figures!
History Fireside Chats are produced, recorded and researched by Dr Kristopher Lovell. The audio was recorded using the Samson G-Track Pro: https://amzn.to/2YU2cit
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This episode is slightly different from the previous Fireside Chats. In this episode I discuss one of my favourite historical figures, Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919). Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist philosopher and revolutionary. Her life has been covered in a lot more detail in a range of books than I could discuss here. If you want to learn more about her life I’d recommend reading the following:
Georg Adler, Peter Hudis and Annelies Laschitza, The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg
Elzbieta Ettinger, Rosa Luxemburg
Kate Evans, Red Rosa A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg
A bad case of the yips has seen this podcast severely delayed. It isn’t quite as tight or as good as I’d like it to be, but it is published so I can stop stressing about it and move on to the next podcast. Ideally it wouldn’t be any longer than 15 minutes, but here it is. This is also the first podcast to come with a transcript.
History Fireside Chats are produced, recorded and researched by Dr Kristopher Lovell. The audio was recorded using the Samson G-Track Pro: https://amzn.to/2YU2cit
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The prevailing view of the interwar period. Unemployed people lining up in London, (1930)
Please excuse the delay in publishing this. My mind has been elsewhere during the Covid-19 lockdown
In this episode of History Fireside Chats, I discuss the extent to which the 1930s can be characterised as the ‘devil’s decade’ by exploring the disparity of experience during the interwar period.
Of course, this is a nuanced issue boiled down into a cursory chat. The experience of people at the time was incredibly complicated. The experience people had depended on where they live and what their jobs were. Some people experienced intense, long term unemployment. Some people experienced an improvement in their daily lives. Some people experienced both at different times. For a more extensive discussion of the period I would recommend the following books:
For two contemporary accounts, I would suggest J. B. Priestley, English Journey and George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier.
An excellent introduction to the period, replete with lots of strong statistical evidence can be found in John Stevenson and Chris Cook, The Slump: Britain in the Great Depression.
A. J. P. Taylor, English history, 1914-1945. Taylor presents a more positive view of the depression than previous historians have. In his words, whilst the depression had dark periods for many ‘Yet, at the same time, most English people were enjoying a richer life than any previously known in the history of the world.’
Laura Beers, Red Ellen: The Life of Ellen Wilkinson. This biography of Wilkinson provides an excellent account of her time as MP for Jarrow, providing a good deal of context for her role in the Jarrow March and a broader impression of life during this period.
History Fireside Chats are produced, recorded and researched by Dr Kristopher Lovell.
In this episode of History Fireside Chats, we discuss the Downfall of Chamberlain and the rise of Winston Churchill and we explore how neither was as inevitable as we often think.
As always, this is only a cursory chat. The events preceding the downfall of Chamberlain were incredibly complicated and nuanced. Thankfully, Neville Chamberlain has been the subject of many detailed histories and biographies, and Winston Churchill’s Premiership is one of the most well covered political events in history. There are too many to list but I would recommend the following:
Iain Macleod, Neville Chamberlain (London, 1961). A sympathetic, if problematic, account of Chamberlain’s life written by a British Conservative minister that explores in detail Chamberlain’s early reforms.
Frank McDonough, Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War (Manchester, 1998). A classic account of Chamberlain and his political career. It presents a very different view of Chamberlain to Macleod.
Peter Neville, Neville Chamberlain: A Study in Failure? (1992). Peter Neville’s book a short but enticing introduction to Chamberlain’s life and is particularly suited for A-Level students. At the end of each chapter, Neville offers a series of exercises designed to explain some of the issues Chamberlain faced.
Jonathan Schneer, Ministers at War: Winston Churchill and his War Cabinet (London, 2015). With enviable style, Schneer produces a history of high politics that reads at times like a well-written political thriller and he brings to life many of the rich personalities that clashed so frequently during the war.
Of course, Churchill’s own account of events is worth reading (even if it requires a slight pinch of salt). For his account see his The Second World War: Volume II: Their Finest Hour (1951)
Please excuse the more-than-usual nasally voice which is due to a mild cold. Apologies and I will try to re-record it when when I fully recovered.
History Fireside Chats are produced, recorded and researched by Dr Kristopher Lovell. The audio was recorded using the Samson G-Track Pro: https://amzn.to/2YU2cit
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases
Dr Kristopher Lovell 